Zelenskyy to Russia: you nearly caused European 'radiation disaster'
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of nearly causing a "radiation disaster", after the largest nuclear power plant in Europe was temporarily cut off from the electrical grid because of fire damage.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant's emergency backup diesel generators had to be activated to keep the plant running, raising concerns of whether the cooling systems were endangered - if the plant were to lose its cooling systems it could cause a nuclear meltdown.
"If the diesel generators hadn't turned on, if the automation and our staff of the plant had not reacted after the blackout, then we would already be forced to overcome the consequences of the radiation accident,"Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.
Mr Zelenskyy blamed the fires on Russian shelling saying: "Russia has put Ukraine and all Europeans one step away from a radiation disaster."
The nuclear plant has been occupied by Russian forces and run by Ukrainian workers since the early days of the six-month-old war.
The area's Russian-appointed governor Yevgeny Balitsky said a Ukrainian military attack was responsible for the fires, accusing them of causing power outages to the region as a result.
The damage to the transmission lines caused two of the plant's reactors to go offline, but Mr Balitsky said one reactor was quickly restored, as was electricity to the region.
Ukraine is heavily reliant on nuclear power, with the technology providing about half of its electricity, meaning it is unable to shut down its reactors during the war.
But an armed conflict taking place near a working atomic plant is troubling for many experts.
"Anybody who understands nuclear safety issues has been trembling for the last six months," Mycle Schneider, a consultant and coordinator of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report, said before the latest incident.
Read more: Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant disconnected from Ukraine grid as Putin orders military expansion
Even though the plant has back-up power, emergency diesel generators can be unreliable, sparking the concerns about a potential meltdown.
The pools where spent fuel rods are kept while they cool down are also vulnerable to shelling, which could scatter radioactive material.
The world's worst nuclear disaster took place in Ukraine in Chernobyl in 1986, when a reactor exploded due to a failed safety test.
Winds carried radiation from the reactor fire across Europe, including to the UK.
The official Soviet death toll for the disaster is 31, however other estimates - which factor in nearby residents exposed to radiation and workers involved in the cleanup operation - range from 4,000 to 93,000 deaths.